Advice Sought:

[suebear]

Hi,

I am a 41 yr old Scottish female who came to Thailand in August 08 under an non-immigrant B visa after buying a partner share into an established company over here. Applied for non-immigrant B as I was planning to actively work in the business.

After my 1st inital work permit application got refused, I reapplied and got a 1 year work permit, although the first period ran for approx two weeks as my 90 day period expired on 19th November. I did border run and have now got 90 days until 16th Feb 09. I have now got to go to Chon Buri for renewal for my work permit.

So far, I have paid the lawyer 30,000 baht for work permit. He has now told me that I still have to do a border run every 90 days then renew my work permit at the same time so they run cocurrently - a total cost of approx 5,000 baht (2,500 for border run, 2,500 for work permit renewal) every 90 days, so an additional 15,000 baht, giving a total yearly cost of approx 45,000 baht. This seems a tad expensive to me.

I was under the impression that to come here to work, I had to apply for a non-immigrant B visa, which I have done. Then I would have to apply for a work permit, which I have done. After the work permit was issued, I could apply for some other type of visa as I now have a work permit, which would mean that I just have to attend immigration at Jomtien every 90 days without doing border runs or having to reapply for a renewal work permit every 90 days.

Can anyone advise, please, as I am getting totally confused.

Thanks,

Suzie

[ubonjoe]

You should be able to get a one year extension of your visa.

But they are many requirements to get this. For many it is the 50,000 baht income requirement that does not allow them to get the extension.

Suggest you have a look at the clauses of the police order that covers extensions for working.

Link to police order: http://www.immigration.go.th/nov2004/2notice/rtp606EN.pdf

Which clause that applies will depend upon the type of business you have.